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Learning how to create:
Toward a learning sciences of art and design
R. Keith Sawyer, Washington University in St. Louis
Abstract: This paper is the first report on an extensive ethnographic study of two professional
schools of art and design in the United States. The overall purpose of the study is to identify
general principles for how to design learning environments that prepare learners to be creative.
First, I document the cultural model of teaching and learning held by the faculty and students,
and analyze the pedagogical practices used. This studio model is of interest because it
emerged naturally in a community of educational practice. I argue that it is distinct from the
two cultural models most familiar to learning scientists: instructionism and apprenticeship.
Second, I argue that the studio model is more closely aligned with learning sciences principles
than either instructionism or apprenticeship. Third, I draw lessons from this studio model for
designing learning environments in all school subjects, in particular STEM subjects.
Introduction
How can we teach students to be creative? How can we teach them disciplinary knowledge in a way that
prepares them to build on it and to go beyond? These questions are increasingly important in education due to a
widely acknowledged global transformation to a knowledge-based society and a creative economy (Florida,
2002; Sawyer, 2008). In the United States, many learning scientists have joined with policy makers to advocate
that schools should teach “21st century skills” including creativity (Trilling & Fadel, 2011). In the United
Kingdom, national policy since the late 1990s has emphasized the creative industries as an economic strategy,
and creativity is a part of the national curriculum (NACCCE, 1999). Internationally, the OECD has generated a
series of reports about the need for schools to become creative learning environments (e.g., OECD, 2006, 2008).
The future of learning must centrally involve creativity.
This paper is the first report on an extensive ethnographic study of two professional schools of art and
design in the United States. The goal of the study was to document the cultural model of teaching and learning
held by the faculty and students, and to document and analyze the pedagogical practices used. Two institutions
were chosen: the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), a free-standing art and design college dedicated
to art and design with a career focus; and Washington University (WU), where the art and design school is
embedded within a comprehensive research university, with a more theoretical and research focus. These very
different sites were chosen to ensure that the identified cultural model would be more likely to be general to all
art and design schools rather than specific to a certain type of institution. Data include videotapes of studio
classes and critiques, audiotaped interviews with professors, audiotaped interviews with students, photos of
student work, and copies of curricular materials provided by professors. As of Fall 2011, the data-gathering
phase is complete and transcription has begun. Although the transcription and coding is expected to continue
through 2012, it is already possible to identify a core set of features of the cultural model of teaching and
learning, and this paper presents the first preliminary findings from the study.
This study is of importance to learning scientists for three reasons. First, it documents a naturally
occurring cultural model, one that emerged over time in a professional community of practice. Thus it occupies
an analogous position to the various ethnographies of apprenticeship that so strongly influenced learning
sciences in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990).
Second, I will argue that this cultural model is strongly consistent with learning sciences findings, and yet that it
presents an intriguingly different vision of teaching and learning. Third, I will argue that this cultural model can
help us to resolve a fundamental paradox facing learning sciences theory and research: How can students learn
the basic facts, concepts, and skills of a discipline, and yet learn them in such a way as to be prepared to be
creative and to go beyond them?
To date, learning scientists have rarely addressed creativity explicitly. However, many of the reforms
advocated by learning scientists are designed to result in learning outcomes that researchers believe result in
higher creative potential (Sawyer, 2008). For example, when one learns deeper conceptual understanding rather
than superficial knowledge, one is better prepared to transfer that understanding to a new situation, resulting in
adaptive expertise (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986; Schwartz, Bransford, & Sears, 2005) or adaptive competence (de
Corte, 2010). Several learning scientists have been inspired by studio practices in design education and
engineering education, and have adopted studio practices in K-12 math and science classes (e.g., Cossentino &
Shaffer, 1999; Cox, Harrison, & Hoadley, 2009; Greeno, 1997; Jacobson & Lehrer, 2000; Hmelo, Holton, &
Kolodner, 2000), but without empirically documenting the range of practices found in art and design education,
and without fully theorizing and articulating how such environments might foster greater creativity. This project
intends to build on and extend this previous work.
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Learning scientists have argued that the traditional cultural model of teaching and learning, referred to
as instructionism (Papert, 1980), transmission and acquisition (Rogoff, 1990), or the standard model (OECD,
2008) is not grounded in the science of learning. Beginning in the 1980s, education researchers searched “in the
wild” for other cultural models of teaching and learning, and were drawn to apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, &
Newman, 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990). These two cultural models have often presented as two
poles of an axis from formal learning to informal learning. I argue that the studio model represents a third
cultural model of teaching and learning, distinct from both instructionism and apprenticeship. Documenting this
cultural model is the first goal of this paper.
The second goal is to demonstrate that this cultural model is closely aligned with learning sciences
findings, and thus to demonstrate that those findings are not restricted to STEM disciplines. Learning scientists
have argued that their findings reflect general properties of human cognition that underlie all learning. And yet,
learning sciences research has occurred almost exclusively in STEM disciplines. This study serves as an
important validation test of the generality of learning sciences findings.
The third goal is to argue that the studio model has implications beyond art and design education; that
it provides lessons for how to resolve longstanding tensions faced by learning scientists and educators in STEM
disciplines. Most importantly, I argue that studio learning environments resolve a fundamental paradox of
constructivist teaching: how to ensure that learners master core facts and skills, while at the same time learning
how to use that knowledge creatively? Sawyer (2011) argued that such teaching is best thought of as an
improvisational activity, and that the best teaching is disciplined improvisation: teaching that provides space for
the flexibility required for constructivist learning, but guided within structures and frameworks—in a similar
fashion to professionally performed improvisations found in jazz and improv theater. In this paper, I show that
the teaching practices of professional schools of art and design represent a form of disciplined improvisation,
and thus show us how to teach for creativity.
Related studies
Hetland et al. (2007) studied the teaching practices of five teachers at two secondary schools, and identified
three practices: demonstration/lecture, student work, and critique. Their analysis was focused on studio art, and
did not draw connections to the learning sciences.
As in most other academic disciplines, university instructors often engage in reflection and writing
about their own teaching practice. Design educators have written about design education (e.g., Design Studies
1999 special issue); and architecture educators have written about architecture education (e.g., Dutton, 1991;
Nicol & Pilling, 2000). Although these writings are helpful, they tend to be focused on practitioner issues and
rarely explore underlying models of learning. Two exceptions are (Schön, 1985) and (Shaffer, 2003) which
report on ethnographies of educational practice in architecture studios.
There have been several studies of design expertise (Cross, 2011; Lawson & Dorst, 2009) and design
practice (Hall & Stevens, 1996). Many of these studies identify various stages of the design process and the
iterative cycling through them; a typical model includes stages such as (1) explore the problem, (2) generate a
range of concepts, (3) select the most promising concept, (4) develop the concept into a detailed design, (5)
communicate the final proposed design.
This study builds on previous work in several ways: (1) although prior studies have described specific
practices, none document the complete cultural model of teaching and learning shared in this community of
practice; (2) for the most part, each study tends to focus on one discipline (art, architecture, or engineering)
whereas this study attempts to identify what is common across all art and design disciplines; (3) previous studies
tend to focus on one class, teacher, or project, and thus are not able to identify the way that learning trajectories
are designed for the learner, nor the place of any one practice in it; (4) finally, this study aims to identify general
principles, grounded in the learning sciences, that can be applied to all academic disciplines, particularly STEM
disciplines.
The most closely related prior studies are (Shaffer, 2003) and (Hetland et al., 2007); this study is
inspired by those studies, and attempts to be both broader and deeper.
Methodology
The author conducted an ethnographic study of two professional schools of art and design. Two very different
types of institutions were chosen to ensure that the cultural model identified would be more likely to be general
to all art and design schools rather than specific to a certain type of institution.
The Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) is a freestanding institution dedicated to art and
design. It is proud of its focus on “creative careers” and its ability to place students in creative industry jobs after
graduation. It is the largest art and design school in the United States, with over 9,000 students and more than 40
different majors offered, ranging from painting and sculpture to architecture, industrial design, furniture design,
advertising, videogame design, and movie production.
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The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts is embedded within Washington University (WU), a
comprehensive research university. Students are required to take one course each semester outside of the Sam
Fox School. Most students take classes in the College of Arts and Sciences, but some take classes in the School
of Business or even the School of Engineering. Compared to SCAD, there is more of a focus on theoretical
foundations, conceptual underpinnings, and a notion of arts practice as research. WU is substantially smaller,
with under 1,000 students and just over ten undergraduate and graduate degrees.
At SCAD the author served as a Visiting Professor for two academic quarters (a total of six months)
and conducted three other shorter site visits. At WU the author has been a professor since 1996, in a different
academic unit but with an office about ½ mile distant. Observations and interviews occurred during two
academic semesters. Both sites combined resulted in a total of approximately 75 hours of video observations and
audiotape interviews, as follows:
Table 1: Data gathered.
Classes videotapes
6 (2.5 hours each)
6
SCAD
WU
Instructors interviewed
18
16
Students interviewed
6
4
This conference paper is a preliminary report; not all materials have been transcribed and coded.
However, based on initial analyses of these materials, several preliminary findings have emerged. By the time of
the conference in Summer 2012, specific quotations and video episodes will be available for presentation.
Findings
Based on a preliminary review of the ethnographic materials, the studio model can be characterized by the
following features.
Complex, authentic, real-world projects
In all of the classes observed, instructors carefully design projects to initiate and guide student work. A project
poses a problem that is open ended, so that there is no single obvious way to resolve the problem, and so that
each student must identify their own path to a solution. In design terms, these are ill defined or wicked problems.
In the first two years of the curriculum, the projects typically take two to three weeks to complete, and over the
course of a quarter or semester term, four to five projects will be completed. In the latter two years of the
curriculum, projects become progressively more open ended and involve longer periods of work, fewer
constraints, and greater student discretion. In these later classes, it is common for one project to absorb the entire
term.
The projects are designed so that students will not be able to complete them unless they master specific
knowledge and skills that have been identified by the instructor as the desired learning outcomes. Instructors
believe that students will learn the required knowledge and skills more effectively if they learn them while
engaged in a process of authentic problem solving. Instructors justify this method of instruction by pointing out
that in the art and design professions, problems are complex wholes, and cannot be reduced to individual
component skills. “Real world projects are complex and all the parts are interrelated. It’s not linear” (Ella,
SCAD interior design).1 They believe that teaching individual skills apart from authentic projects would not
properly prepare students for professional disciplinary practice.
In many classes in design disciplines, instructors work with external industry partners as clients. This is
particularly common in disciplines like industrial design and graphic design. Executives from the client firm
will attend a class early in the term to present the problem to be solved, and will visit again at the end of the
term, when student teams will present their final work to the client.
A common theme in learning sciences based curricula is that students are encouraged to engage in
activities that are similar to those practiced by professionals in the discipline (e.g., Edelson, 2006; Krajcik &
Blumenfeld, 2006). Because this study analyzes professional schools with the goal of preparing students for
professional practice, it is not surprising that authentic practice is heavily emphasized.
Guided problem solving
Although projects are open ended so that each student must find their own way to a solution, projects also
typically specify a set of constraints or parameters that restrict how the student can proceed. Here are two
representative examples of project assignments.
In a Communication Design class:
The attached population data compares populations in 2000 and 2010 for all countries and
regions with more than 5000 people. Using at least the first two columns, design two different
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approaches to visualize this data. One of these approaches must make some use of some
aspect of a world map (shape of countries, relative position in the world, etc.) Each of your
two solutions must be able to fit within a 20” x 16” format, but can go smaller. You may use a
maximum of two colors, black and a second color of your choice. (Heather Corcoran, WU,
Spring 2011)
In a first year 2D design class:
Create a project that conveys (1) something that just happened; (2) something happening; or
(3) something about to happen. You can only use a quarter or less of a figure, you must use
these fifteen objects provided, and it must be in an architecturally significant interior. (Kathy,
SCAD, Winter 2010)
When I asked professors why they provided such specific constraints, they provided a variety of
intriguing answers that invoke many learning sciences principles and warrant further exploration.
First, the goal of project parameters is to limit students’ creative options, so that their creative effort is
focused on the specific learning outcomes desirable at that point in their learning trajectory. John Hendrix (WU,
illustration) said “Project constraints set you free. It focuses the learning because it removes the number of
variables they have to think about.”
Second, instructors often said that without such constraints, students would fall into familiar patterns.
Julie Varland (SCAD, architecture) said “We are peeling away their assumptions and forcing them into
discomfort… without structure, they’d do what they know already”. Arne Nadler (WU, core) said “You find
these things through doing, not while you are thinking about it.” Other instructors said “Students need the
structure. It gives them something to push against” (SCAD reading group). This practice is consistent with
learning sciences studies of misconceptions (diSessa, 2006): The constraints are thought to be necessary to help
the students to deeply challenge their own misconceptions, and then to guide them to a more advanced
conception.
Third, instructors said that the constraints were valuable because they would lead students to fail early,
thus more deeply realizing the need to move beyond their existing misconceptions. John Hendrix said, “Students
should come in with an expectation and then have it proven wrong. Then, we redirect them down the right
path.” Scott Thorpe (SCAD, sculpture) said, “People don’t change their model of thinking unless there’s a
consequence. I wanted them to fail.” Rhonda Arntsen (SCAD, graphic design) said “I encourage failure.” This
practice is consistent with several cognitive studies showing that learner failure results in more effective
learning (impasse driven learning of Van Lehn, 1988; desirable difficulties of Bjork & Linn, 2006; productive
failure of Kapur, 2008).
Fourth, instructors often said that constraints were necessary to force students to slow down. Professors
report that beginning art and design students attempt to move too quickly toward a solution. “I want students to
stop and think. Don’t start working right away” (Rhonda Arntsen). An important outcome of art and design
education is that students master a deliberate process that will result in consistently effective work. Prior
research (see “Related studies”) has documented that expert designers engage in an early exploratory phase,
which students tend to rush through. One painting instructor at SCAD, Susan, assigned a project that required
students to use the lost medieval technique of glazes—not only because glazes were a valuable technique for a
painter, but also because glazes take a long time to dry, and cannot be applied until the under painting has dried,
thus forcing students to slow down.
The constraints of a project assignment are the subject of substantial thought and explicit discussion
among instructors. Project assignments are continually revised, a process familiar to learning scientists as design
based research (Barab, 2006). Instructors often talked about projects that didn’t work and required revision. The
most common problem was that not enough constraints were specified. In this situation, what typically happens
is that all students generate a too-obvious solution; their misconceptions are not successfully challenged. A less
common problem is that too many constraints are specified. In this situation, all students tend to generate very
similar solutions.
The studio model is similar to project-based learning, a learning-sciences based science curriculum
(Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2006). According to Krajcik and Blumenfeld, learning environments that are project
based have five key features:
1.
2.
3.
They start with a driving question, a problem to be solved.
Learners explore the driving question by participating in authentic, situated inquiry—processes of problem
solving that are central to expert performance in the discipline. As students explore the driving question,
they learn and apply important ideas in the discipline.
Students, teachers, and community members engage in collaborative activities to find solutions to the
driving question.
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5.
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While engaged in the inquiry process, students are scaffolded with learning technologies that help them
participate in activities normally beyond student ability.
Students create a set of tangible products that address the driving question. These are shared artifacts,
publicly accessible external representations of the class’s learning.
Only feature (4), technology scaffolding, is not found in art and design education. Feature (3),
collaboration, was often observed in art and design classes, but collaboration is beyond the scope of this paper.
Feature (5) is at the core of art and design education and will be discussed further below.
Curriculum design
Instructors design open-ended projects so that as students develop their own creative solutions, they attain the
desired learning outcomes. Douglas Dowd (WU, illustration) said, “The learning is embedded in the act.”
Instructors believe that simply warning students about common problems, or describing how to use standard
techniques, will not work. Students have to learn through problem solving.
Each term, a class begins with high scaffolding and progressively fades to less scaffolding. Over the
four year undergraduate curriculum, fading occurs on a broader scale. Project assignments are carefully
sequenced so that desired techniques and domain knowledge are acquired in the process of engaging in
authentic problem solving activity, and so that each project’s knowledge prepares the learner to begin the next
project. Amy Thompson (WU, printmaking) said “Every project builds on the project before it”.
In many design disciplines, there is a standard sequential practice in the discipline (see “Related
studies” above) that students must learn. In the course of a two-week project, a studio class will typically meet
for four times—twice each week for 2.5 hours—and for each of these four classes, the instructor will specify an
assignment that moves the student to the next stage of the design process. This practice scaffolds and
externalizes the design process used by professionals in the discipline.
For example, in a 3D graphics studio in SCAD’s advertising department (Joe diGioia), a term-length
project required students to work through all of the stages of a real project: identify a target market, create a
logo, develop prototypes, provide preliminary sketches, and at the end, present a final model. As students
engaged in this project, at each stage they learned specific techniques and skills; yet these were contextualized
within an ongoing authentic activity.
Instructors’ comments frequently remind students of what they were working on in previous weeks,
how their work has evolved, and mention potential next steps for the work. In a painting class, Susan Russell
asked students to estimate what percentage of the work they had completed so far, and then asked “What comes
next in your painting?” One student was asked, “What will you do in your next hour of work on this painting?”
Instructors constantly reinforce the embedded, authentic nature of creative work.
Learning sciences research has demonstrated that constructivist learning processes must be carefully
guided to result in maximum effectiveness. One group of studies has shown that discovery learning, a relatively
unguided version of constructivism, is less effective than instructionism (Mayer, 2004). The consensus
emerging from learning sciences research is that the most effective learning environments are fairly highly
constrained, while nonetheless providing students with the opportunity to engage in authentic, situated inquiry
practices. Art and design students are substantially scaffolded by the parameters of the project assignments, and
by the sequencing of projects over the course of a school term.
Externalization and reflection
One of the most fundamental characteristics of art and design learning is that a learner’s developing
understandings are externally represented in a visible artifact. “Ideas come from making things… in design,
making is thinking” (Ken Botnick, WU, printmaking). Catalina Freixas (WU, architecture) had an explicit rule
in her class, “If it’s not on your drawing then we can’t discuss it,” because of her frequent experience of students
wanting to talk about what they thought they were doing (but had not actually done).
Studio conversation is always focused on the external artifact generated by the student. “Students have
to explain their choices and back them up” (Amy Thompson). In one architecture critique I observed, a visiting
architect’s first comment to a student was “I don’t understand what we are looking at” and later, “You’re not
saying what you are doing and giving it a name” (Freixas studio 11 May 2011). Such comments refer to one of
the most common problems with student work: that the student’s intention for the work is not realized in the
actual work. When this happens, instructors ask questions like: “Can anyone help him figure out what this is
about?” (Susan); “Why do you want to pursue a solution like this?” (Ella).
In the studio, reflection is constantly required. Why this choice? Why this action? What are you trying
to do? Why are you using this technique? Learning sciences has found that environments that foster reflection
about learning are more effective (e.g., Bransford et al., 2000). These project-based learning environments are
designed to guide students toward an increasing ability to link intention with making.
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Balancing domain skill learning and creative abilities
Expert performance in most domains requires a great deal of repetitive practice, and most knowledge intensive
professions require that a large body of facts and skills be mastered (Ericsson, 2002). In professional schools of
art and design—where creativity is more valued than in any other discipline—basic skills are viewed as
essential and are constantly emphasized. Yet their learning is embedded in the authentic professional practices
of the discipline.
Skills are often taught opportunistically, as a question or problem arises in the course of a student’s
project work. For example, in Susan’s painting class (22 Feb 2010), a review of one student’s painted portrait
gave the instructor an opportunity to tell the entire class about classic techniques for shadow and background.
Responding to these “teachable moments” requires a high degree of pedagogical content knowledge; because
the syllabus is not structured around specific facts and skills, instructors must keep in mind their own set of
desired learning outcomes and wait for good opportunities to introduce them.
The studio model demonstrates that teaching creativity is not opposed to repetition, craft, and skill—
that in fact, creative performance depends on their mastery. Thus the studio model can help STEM educators to
resolve an ever-present tension: how to design scaffolded constructivist learning environments, such as projectbased and inquiry-based approaches, that also ensure that students master basic facts and skills.
Conclusion
This study contributes to the learning sciences in the three ways identified in the introduction.
First, the learning sciences have almost exclusively studied learning in science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM). Learning scientists believe that their findings apply to learning in all domains,
and yet this belief has not been empirically validated because there has been so little learning sciences research
in other disciplines, particularly in the arts. This study confirms that the principles of effective learning that have
been identified in the learning sciences, primarily through the study of STEM disciplines, apply equally to art
and design.
Second, I have argued that the studio model is closely aligned with learning sciences findings—more
so than either instructionism or apprenticeship. This is particularly intriguing because the studio model emerged
over historical time in a community of practice. Instructors all reported that they learned how to teach on their
own, drawing on memories of their own favorite instructors, or on conversation with colleagues. Each instructor
develops their own project assignments (they do not use textbooks or online repositories of good project ideas).
Third, the learning environments that are found in schools of art and design are well articulated and
carefully designed, to an extent that has been difficult to attain in STEM curricular reforms based on learning
sciences findings. Projects are linked together sequentially through each term, and the classes are linked together
across the four year undergraduate curriculum. A sustained study of the nature of this sequencing could provide
valuable insights into how to redesign STEM curricula.
Most importantly, these learning environments are designed with the goal of resolving a fundamental
paradox of constructivist teaching: how to ensure that learners master core facts and skills, while at the same
time learning how to use that knowledge creatively? In the future of learning, in the 21st century’s creative age,
these are the same goals that we have for the reform of STEM education.
Endnotes
(1) Many participants requested that I use their actual name, wanting to be credited for their pedagogical practices, so for
those participants I provide both first and last name. Other participants requested a pseudonym, and for those
participants I use only a first name pseudonym.
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